EVE General Discussion

http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/21/eve-online-saw-66m-in-revenue-last-year-mulls-ipo/

CCP Games, the makers of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game EVE Online , say the company brought in $66 million in revenue last year.

The game, a science fictional adventure set in a star cluster dominated by five major civilizations, first launched in 2003, and its subscriber base (currently about 400,000) has grown every year since launch. Revenue has been growing too, at a compound annual growth rate of 53 percent, bringing in total revenue of $300 million over the game’s lifetime. As for profits, CCP would only say that it has “very healthy margins” — a claim backed up by the fact that it has grown to more than 450 employees despite only raising $3 million in seed funding.

This might seem like an illustration that traditional online gaming, overshadowed in the media by casual social games like those from Zynga, can still work as a business model. At the same time, CCP’s new CMO David Reid says the company has been excited to embrace new models, in addition to the traditional subscriptions offered by EVE.

CCP has already been experimenting with free-to-play in EVE, by allowing rich subscribers to essentially pay for others to play, in exchange for virtual currency — something that has been used by 40,000 people, the company says. Its next game, DUST 451, is scheduled for release this summer, and will go further in this direction, charging players for in-game credits rather than subscriptions or playing time (though there is an initial “cover charge”).

That’s not the only ambitious thing about DUST. With its first-person shooter gameplay, this is CCP’s attempt to reach the audience that made franchises like Call of Duty a hit, while also connecting to the EVE universe. Through mechanisms like orbital bombardment, the space-based players in EVE can actually affect the planet-based combat in DUST, and vice versa.

As a result of its plans for DUST, as well as Asian expansion for EVE, CCP says 2012 will be its bigger year yet. In fact, the Icelandic company’s CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson says an IPO is a possibility, though predictably, he wouldn’t commit to anything.

“We want to be ready for an IPO from a policy standpoint,” Petursson says. “We’re quite a substantial company, so we’re thinking, ‘Okay, what is the next step?’”

That's a lot of Hookers, Blow and Lutefisk.

But, going public brings with it great responsibility and CCP in my opinion is not ready yet to answer to real shareholders.

Cue the doom-saying about IPOs creating IPOgate.

Dust 451 does just sound classier.

Also, Bradbury was kinda crazy. Fahrenheit isn't about the evils of censorship - according to Bradbury himself, it is actually about the evils of technology.

CCP please maintain majory stock...

Companies like EA would destroy this company and game if given the chance.

Lol, I don't think you understand how finances work. If CCP kept all the CCP stock then they would raise no cash. I don't think EA could do any worse than completely ignoring EVE development for at least 18 months, I wish we had EA service for those 18 months.

I'd have to dig up the financial statements but I remember reading that the main founders of CCP don't own >50% of CCP stock. My data is years old but the two main private shareholders of EVE are investment companies and control over a bit over 50% of stock. So you guys should not be preparing to freak out, you should already be in full blown panic mode because the devs of CCP don't own all the majority of stock in CCP atm.

Also, $66m revenue equates to 366,666 people paying $15/month for an entire year. I think quite a few people pay under $15 and CCP does get income from royalties from the Chinese server so 366,666 is somewhat inaccurate. But somewhere in the 300-400k subs/month range sounds right.

CCPs growth is impressive with a massive upside potential if DUST 514 takes off. Worst case scenario is that CCP keeps the same level of subs and still makes a ton of cash.

Oh wait disregard the above, EVE is dying.

Sounds good to me!

That is why you don't have moneys...

Can someone explain what this means? Rich subscribers paying others to play?

PLEX

40k accounts is actually surprisingly low.